Goodbody (Clara)

In the nineteenth century members of the Goodbody family of Clara, county Offaly, owned estates in counties Westmeath and Galway and in King’s and Queen’s Counties (Offaly and Laois). The various branches of this Quaker family descend from John Goodbody who settled in county Offaly in the mid-seventeenth century. Their county Westmeath estate was in the parishes of Kilcleagh and Ballyloughloe and was held by Marcus Goodbody at the time of Griffith’s Valuation (publ. 1854) while Marcus and his brother Jonathan held land in the parish of Kilbixy jointly. In the mid-1870s Marcus Goodbody of Inchmore House, Clara and Obelisk House, Blackrock, county Dublin owned 1,684 acres in county Westmeath and 2,785 acres in King’s County, Jonathan Goodbody of Castletown House, Clara, owned 986 acres in county Westmeath and 2,128 acres in King’s County (Offaly) and jointly they owned 1,087 acres in county Westmeath.